Song Project: RH Piano Riff
Most of my pop song ideas begin with either a chord progression voiced a particular way on piano or some bass line. The song we'll be talking about here falls in to the first category.
I remember when I first started composing in high school, I did a lot of songs that were just permutations of I, IV, V and vi chords (so in C, that would be C, F, G and Am).
I remember one instrumental I wrote in Year 10 (called "Mystical Movements in Green")—that my drama class choreographed a dance to—used the chord progression vi IV I V and in particular was voiced with the vi and I in the second inversion. I always liked the way it sounded.
A couple of weeks ago, I was improvising on my digital piano and took a liking to the following variation:
III . vi . IV . I V
with the vi and I again in the second inversion. I was playing in F at the time with a driving 3+3+2 rhythm in the right hand, so the resultant riff was:
which sounds something like this:
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This will form the basis for the song.
All material for this project is made available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license so you are free to redistribute and remix with attribution but under the same license and not commercially.
Comments (4)
James Tauber on Nov. 6, 2008:
I'm not talking about the voicing of the chord in isolation but in light of the following chord. It's not always easy to try to analyze *why* I like something but it could be that the vi to IV (respectively in 2nd inversion and root position) builds tension a little more by ascending in the lowest note but keeping the top two notes the same.
The I to V (respectively in 2nd inversion and root position) makes the penultimate chord come across (to me, anyway) as quite triumphant.
As to different inversions sounding different on their own. I think they definitely have different levels of tension and desire to be resolved but sometimes the tension is only clear in a chord once you've heard how it resolves, if that makes sense :-)
David Grant on Nov. 10, 2008:
Thanks for the reply.
Another stupid question...why did you choose that key? Why not C or F#?
James Tauber on Nov. 10, 2008:
The key I write stuff in often largely arbitrary (just whatever I happened to be improvising in when I stumble across a riff I like) although I have been known to transpose later to change the sound of a particular instrument (or vocalist).
Transposing is a dangerous game, though, because "different" often sounds "better" just because it's "different". So you can get in the trap of changing key and thinking it sounds better, then changing key and thinking it sounds better, then...
Last Modified: Nov. 6, 2008
Author: James Tauber
David Grant on Nov. 6, 2008:
Thanks for the post, I'm looking forward to this "series." I'm just starting some introductory harmony recently and I've got a long way to go.
When you talk about voicing vi and I in the second inversion and how you like the way they sounded, are you referring to the actual chord on its own? Or just the way that it sounds when sandwiched into between two other chords. When I'm listening to that progression I'm hearing the melody line that is going up and sort of building. Of course if you had used a different voicing for the vi the melody itself (top note) would have changed and might sound different/better/worse than the way you have it. So when you say you like those inversions is it because they just so happen to work better with the other chords that they transition to/from in terms of the melody?
Or are you just saying that on their own, vi and I in 2nd inversion have a particularly different sound (even when played on their own) than the other inversions. I've never really thought about different inversions sounding different on their own, but I guess they must since there would be different intervals involved.
Let me see, root position has a major third at the bottom and a perfect fifth and a minor third at the top. 1st inversion has minor third at the bottom, a minor sixth, and a perfect 4th at the top. 2nd inversion has a perfect 4th at the bottom, a major sixth, and a major 3rd at the top. Or is that a totally useless stupid way to look at chords?
I hope some of that makes sense? :-)